Hobbes the stuffed tiger from Calvin and Hobbes

This is something I’ve been working on between other projects for a long time. Calvin and Hobbes meant a lot to me growing up, and it still does. It taught me that it was okay to have a rich inner life, even if it made me the odd one out.

Bill Watterson’s amazing watercolor Sunday strips made me want to learn more about the visual arts, and his own views that crept into the strip made me more media-savvy and questioning of authority.

I tried to make Hobbes here as authentic to his ragdoll origins as possible. I spent half an hour digging through old jars of buttons to find two that were just the right amount of mismatched. He’s as floppy as I could make him, with hand-stitching throughout to keep him sturdy enough to be dragged around all day.

I’m not keeping him, of course. There’s a kid whose birthday is coming up, and the last thing I’d want to do is keep Hobbes stuck on a shelf when there’s a new best friend out there waiting to meet him.